The Barbarians are rugby’s biggest anachronism – don’t ever take them away

As the modern game becomes more professional and predictable, rugby’s idealistic, nostalgia-fuelled answer to the Harlem Globetrotters must be protected at all costs, writes Luke Baker

The Barbarians have a storied history within the game of rugby but have never taken it too seriously (Getty Images)

In professional sport, where results and the bottom line is the undisputed king, there is rarely room for sentimentality or history. The record books are littered with legendary athletes cast aside once they’ve outlived their usefulness and once-great institutions being allowed to rot into a shadow of their former selves or ceasing to exist entirely.

As a concept first conceived more than 130 years ago in Leuchters Restaurant, Bradford and whose most defining moment occurred exactly half a century ago, Barbarian FC are perpetually on the chopping block.

They are rugby’s biggest anachronism, a throwback to an era when the sport was unapologetically amateur and thus make almost no sense in the modern day with its hyper-professionalism, packed fixture calendar and concerns around player welfare. For that reason, they must be protected at all costs.